Explorer Courses

Explorer courses are BOSS's quickest-growing category, as new courses are created regularly to accommodate alumni interest. Explorer courses are hybrids, blending the adventurous, active qualities of Field courses with the deeper lessons of Skills courses. Some courses target specific skills while others target specific experiences, giving you the best of both worlds.

About the Course

Explorer courses offer adventurous souls the opportunity to challenge themselves and explore specific topics or territories across Boulder Mountain, the Escalante River system, and the Kaiparowitz Plateau. Because each course offers a unique experience that can't quite be found on a Field, Skills or Training course, here's an overview of the current BOSS Explorer courses:

The Hunter Gatherer is BOSS's oldest Explorer course and offers students the rare opportunity to go off into the wilderness with only primitive items that you have made or prepared yourself. No blanket and poncho on this course. No knife, and no food, either. You and your coursemates will become a band of "hunter gatherers," seeking to provide for yourselves from the environment for up to 9 days in the field. In order to take the Hunter Gatherer course, a participant must have successfully completed a BOSS 14-Day or 28-Day Field course within the past 5 years.

The Desert Navigator is the ideal course for those who wish to focus on the art and science of navigation in the wilderness. Students who successfully master the skills on this course are given the ultimate (and rare) final challenge: a 3-day navigation through the wilderness... alone. But before that can happen, everyone learns about as much as can be taught within 10 days of hands-on lessons: map color & symbol significance, contour lines / intervals, scale, margins, trail selection, declination, magnetic fields, and UTM, Lat. & Long, and Township & Range coordinate systems. By the end of this course, you should be a proficient navigator.

The Survival Rescue course is built around a realistic survival situation in which something “unexpected” has happened to your group. You and your coursemates must then prioritize your needs and determine how to take care of each priority. Your decisions and actions will likely affect your chances of survival. Challenges faced may include finding food and water, creating ways to stay warm, and signalling for rescue. Not much is divulged in advance to participants in this course, as the challenge revolves around your adapting to the unknown.

What you need to know

Since 1968, BOSS has operated in one of the most beautiful and remote parts of the USA: the area surrounding the small town of Boulder, Utah. It is here where we begin and end all courses, using the surrounding public lands as our classroom.

When you're known for being "the toughest survival school in the country," people sometimes wonder what that means. Actually, people usually read that and then go on to something else, something that doesn't sound as intimidating. After all, this is your vacation time, right?

So who exactly goes to "survival school?" Normal people? The kind of people you'd want to hang out with? Well, if you're anything like our alumni, you'll be happy to know that the people who go to BOSS are normal, healthy people looking for an adventurous experience and you'll probably fit right in.